This Polar Vortex everybody on the East Coast is speaking of? It makes me very, very happy that I now live in California. Why do people voluntarily live in the freezing climates when there is a promised land on the West Coast with 75 degree weather in January? Why?! (Yeah, yeah, greatest city in the world, family, jobs, blah, blah, details. It’s COLD out there, and it’s WARM out here.)

After 8 years of putting in my New York City dues, I can’t relate any longer to the cold weather complaints…but I can relate to the skin ailments that come along with Ye Olde Polare Vortexe. The skin on my body has never given me any troubles: no rashes, no flakes, no scales, nothin’.

But now, it’s as if a red switch has been flipped while an alarm sounds: “Abort! Abort! Everybody to the control room! You are falling apart! Your body is old!”

Suddenly, my back, my tummy and the areas surrounding my underarms are an itchy, scaly, dry, tight mess.